NZ Man Goes On Trial Over Thai Sex Tour

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Verdict will be soon; maybe today / this week. Will be very interesting to see what the judge decides. I have a feeling he won't be convicted, or perhaps only convicted of something very minor.

[maxme]

However most cases in Thailand are just "for show", so it looks like the cops are actually doing sth. If the law enforcement was atleast organized they could have seriously cut down on these types of crimes in this country.

[paulian]

That's Entrapment and I hope the guy gets off! The cops probably offered the dude a bunch of money and he couldn't resist it even at the guys website doesn't promote anything child sex *commercial link edited out*

I feel sorry for him and his family, the police must have nothing better to do.

No, It's not entrapment in any terms of any law in any first world country on the planet. Don't make statements on subjects you know nothing about, Thank You.

[paulian]

I know nothing about the legal system in NZ, but if the police thought he had photographs of him with his arm around underage boys it may have been prudent to first establish if the boys are actually underage. I would imagine it's easy enough to find out where he stayed and it should not be too difficult to track down the boys in question and establish if they are underage and if so then if he committed an offense with those boys. (as it's certainly not illegal to have your arm around a boy of any age).

I have no time for pedophiles, however I am concerned at how the police are prepared to entrap someone for a minor offense (ie offereing services from NZ via a website ) compared to the much more serious offense of sexual contact with underage boys if that happened, and in all probability they spent a great deal of time and effort trying (and presumably failing) to establish a substantive offense and are now trying to justify that expense by following up this offense which surely cannot result in the same penalty as is he was proven to have actually had illegal sexual contact.

I would have thought that anyone with something to hide would know better than to carry incriminating evidence through customs there days, perhaps he had nothing to hide and the photos were innocent.

Also, I agree that this is a criminal news story and not a "gay" story. I'm not gay, but I cringe then I hear people suggest that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles, I'm sure that's not true.

It's not entrapment and you do not have to find the boy half way around the world to convict the perp for pedophilia or pornography . The photo is enough to convict, believe it or not ! If the victim is found there is a greater chance more charges will be filed, however, the photo is all that's needed as I stated.

[Beetlejuice]

It appears that these days every adult male is considered as having potential paedophilic tendencies.

You could be viewed upon as suspect just by innocently hugging your nephews or nieces or giving sweets to the neighbor's kids and so on.

I believe that most of this is caused by hyped up media scaremongering.

In some countries fathers are even banned from taking photos of their kids in public places, such as parks or on outings.

What a sad world we now live in.

Edited November 10, 2011 by Beetlejuice

[KeyserSoze01]

Child protection advocates are right to be angry about the child sex tourism case before the High Court in Auckland. But not, I suggest, with the defendant.

He has been to Thailand several times over the last ten years - mostly with his father, a medical scientist, to take medical equipment to refugees on the Thai/Burma border.

He has also visited some of the gay night spots in Bangkok and Pattaya.

Customs inspected his laptop on his return. They found nothing objectionable.

Police reported to the media that he had claimed he had been to bed with a 14 year old Thai boy. Under cross examination the undercover policeman admitted he had not said this.

Police reported to the media that the undercover policeman had 'been offered a sex tour.' Again, under cross examination, the police officer admitted this was not true, and that he raised with the defendant the possibility of finding a 'young friend.'

The defendant has been charged with promoting and organising a sex tour.

The Crown's case for the promoting charge is that the words 'your special interests' on the defendant's website www.overtherainbow.co.nz are a code for unlawful sexual activity.

The defendant says this simply means what it says – that if a client was interested in WWII sites, or diving, or temples, etc, a tour could be organised around those interests. The website and sample itinerary seem to confirm this.

On the organising charge, the defendant says he suspected his 'client' was interested in underage boys. He tried to steer him in the direction of activities which would meet his needs and be safe and legal.

In the end he wrote an email in which he confirmed he would not organise or participate in anything illegal, and asked the client to accept this as a condition of moving forward. Five days later the client emailed back saying he still wanted to go ahead.

The police case is essentially that the defendant should have known the undercover police officer still intended to act illegally, and therefore that making flight and hotel bookings for him was 'facilitating the use of prostitutes under the age of eighteen.' In their view, that constitutes 'organising a child sex tour.'

But the real question is surely, if there is child sex tourism being organised in New Zealand, why did the police spend eight months of their time, and vast amounts of taxpayer money, pursuing someone who had never organised a sex tour, and on the evidence so far, never had any intention of doing so?

Ah, logic and reason. Something sorely missing around here with all he hyperbole.

The sad part of this case is that even if found innocent of any crimes, the defendant has been branded by the media and police as a facilitator of pedophiles. Something that will haunt him for the rest of his life, whether true or not.

You would think to Kiwi police would have better things to do than to crusade against it's citizens attempting to set them up in sting operations.

[webfact]

N.Zealander convicted of planning Thai child sex tour

WELLINGTON, November 11, 2011 (AFP) - An Auckland man was convicted Friday of organising a child sex tour to Thailand, in a case described as a legal first in New Zealand.

Police said the 47-year-old man, whose identity was suppressed, was arrested last year after a covert operation where an undercover officer posed as a potential customer.

The man was convicted in the High Court in Auckland of organising an underage sex tour but found not guilty on a lesser charge of promoting the tour, police said. He faces a jail term of up to seven years.

Prosecutors told the court the undercover police officer contacted the man through a website which offered tours to Thailand for people seeking sex with young boys.

They said the man organised travel to Thailand for himself and the officer, agreeing to provide on procuring underage boys for sex. He was arrested before the trip was made.

Local media reported it was the first conviction under 1995 New Zealand legislation targeting the organisation and promotion of overseas child sex tours.

Detective senior sergeant John Michael said the two-year investigation, which involved various police agencies and the New Zealand customs service, showed authorities were determined to crack down on child exploitation.

"People who engage in this horrible kind of abuse of young children must be stopped," Michael said in a statement.

"We find this type of offensive behaviour involves people from more affluent nations travelling to poorer countries, where children are exploited for financial gain."

The man was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on February 14.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2011-11-11

[vediovis]

Catch him and make a public example. A lot of horrible things should happen to him and of course medias will relay all of them with a lot of details during months. So people will know.

Edited November 11, 2011 by vediovis

[Ijustwannateach]

pedophiles can't be cured as this is a stable sexual preference and t's not something that goes away — this is a fact being recognized by the medical profession.

The problem for society becomes how to deal with these people how to reduce 'their urges'.

If we fail to address this problem then as a society we have failed to protect our most vulernable members, our children.

If I have a pup that I dont plan to breed or to show I do not leave him intact. Why doesnt society take the same attitude to paedophiles?? Castrate them. Doing so will not 'cure them' but will greatly reduce their urges.

Back top the OP from a NZ paper---- he used on his website. The words included "boy'', "gay sex'' and "Thailand''.

Not exactly the language of ambiguity

Your viewpoint of the mental illness issues related to pedophilia is quite strange. It is NOT by any means a 'sexual preference', of the standard accepted adult varieties including heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexualism, etc. It is a MENTAL ILLNESS. Most accepted psychological models of the illness hold that it has nothing to do with sexuality at all actually- because children are not yet sexual beings. Thus it is nothing about the consensual, emotionally bonding arrangements that adults make with each other meeting on common ground, but about exploitation, domination, power, and abuse of a less powerful, helpless being.

And, once again, there is nothing dodgy about using the words 'gay sex' or 'Thailand' on a website. And it has been repeatedly pointed out that (very unfortunately in my view) 'boy' IS actually ambiguous when used by gay foreign tourists to Thailand in this context. I hope this kind of incident will cause a reconsideration of the use of this argot among gay foreign tourists in Thailand.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is various persistent misinformation out there, by the way, about the age of consent in Thailand and it seems pertinent once again to give the facts as relayed to me by a lawyer friend when I mentioned this confusion among foreigners:

1. Children under the age of majority (20yo) act at the tacit permission of their parents until they are TWENTY years old. Technically, a parent who objects to a sexual relationship with a child under this age could call for legal action up that point. Including, for example, taking legal action against someone for inappropriate dealings with their child of only NINETEEN years of age.

2. Aside from parental consent under the age of twenty, and assuming it exists, children who have not yet reached legal majority (20yo) may have physical relationships and/or get married down to the age of 15 (or 16, I seem to recall a technicality on this point but don't remember the exact details), but once again this assumes parental knowledge and consent.

3. Engaging a person under the age of majority (20) in prostitution carries various penalties depending on just what the age of the person is. At 15 and above, the penalties are labelled things like 'corrupting a minor' or 'removing a minor from his guardian for corrupt purposes'. (Incidentally, this second form of crime can be held to have occurred simply by taking the person under majority (20) to a place which is DEEMED to be a place of prostitution, including nearly all hotels, for example). The younger the person, the more severe the potential penalties- but in general, the penalties only apply if parents have complained (withheld consent formally). This is why men (including Thai men) who have gotten 17 year old girls pregnant out of wedlock can be 'blackmailed' (if that's the right word) by the parents into getting married or paying huge dowries.

4. When the age of the person under majority drops below 15, the language of the legal penalty changes into wording like 'statutory rape' and then 'child molestation', and the penalties are concurrently more severe and may theoretically be applied by prosecutors with or without parental consultation.

The foggy posts above in the thread about the age of consent 'being 15' are therefore extremely oversimplistic, very inaccurate, misleading, and dangerous- though I would personally have little sympathy with persons foolish enough to behave in a way that would get them in trouble with this reading of the law. I take it that in a society where the average life expectancy is still quite low and farming families with less education are common, there is a need to allow people to start family units when they have finished formal school and are basically beginning what will be their adult farming life, usually around 15 or 16 at the end of Matthayom 3. Similar circumstances still exist in some of the more rural states in the U.S., for example.

[Ijustwannateach]

By the way, a few more posts have been deleted, especially posts which imply that because of philosophical differences of opinion on psychology or the law, the other correspondent must be a pedophile or soft on pedophiles. Those posts are getting warnings with penalties.

Tedious 'hang-'im high' posts are also being deleted. As previously stated, there is no need for this kind of strutting about. I don't really care how much violence any of you wants to express towards any of the alleged criminals; it isn't impressing anyone and it doesn't contribute to discussion and it is boring.

If the tone of further posts here continues along these lines, the thread will be closed quite soon.

[thaibeachlovers]

N.Zealander convicted of planning Thai child sex tour

WELLINGTON, November 11, 2011 (AFP) - An Auckland man was convicted Friday of organising a child sex tour to Thailand, in a case described as a legal first in New Zealand.

Police said the 47-year-old man, whose identity was suppressed, was arrested last year after a covert operation where an undercover officer posed as a potential customer.

The man was convicted in the High Court in Auckland of organising an underage sex tour but found not guilty on a lesser charge of promoting the tour, police said. He faces a jail term of up to seven years.

Prosecutors told the court the undercover police officer contacted the man through a website which offered tours to Thailand for people seeking sex with young boys.

They said the man organised travel to Thailand for himself and the officer, agreeing to provide on procuring underage boys for sex. He was arrested before the trip was made.

Local media reported it was the first conviction under 1995 New Zealand legislation targeting the organisation and promotion of overseas child sex tours.

Detective senior sergeant John Michael said the two-year investigation, which involved various police agencies and the New Zealand customs service, showed authorities were determined to crack down on child exploitation.

"People who engage in this horrible kind of abuse of young children must be stopped," Michael said in a statement.

"We find this type of offensive behaviour involves people from more affluent nations travelling to poorer countries, where children are exploited for financial gain."

The man was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on February 14.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2011-11-11

So a two year investigation involving multiple organisations netted ONE person. Considering NZ is financially in the poo and doesn't have enough police for normal duties, is it good value for money?

Edited November 11, 2011 by thaibeachlovers

[WinnieTheKhwai]

One person who never actually provided a sex tour, other than for the cop who entrapt him, after the cop insisted. (And he didn't directly or indirectly arrange underage boys.. it's really a puzzling verdict.)

[thaibeachlovers]

One person who never actually provided a sex tour, other than for the cop who entrapt him, after the cop insisted. (And he didn't directly or indirectly arrange underage boys.. it's really a puzzling verdict.)

Doesn't really surprise me, as NZ is OTT PC, and Thailand really gets them going, especially if you're a single man coming back from there.

[theblether]

Does anyone know why his name was suppressed during the trial? Has his name been released now? If not why not?